Areas of natural beautye.g. willingness of people to pay for a view of natural beauty

Health and well-beinge.g. health cost savings from reducing air pollution and green spaces for physical exercise.

Land and property valuese.g. impact of the environment on property prices

Tourisme.g. number of people visiting nature spaces

Recreatione.g. use of different natural environments by the local population

Biodiversitye.g. willingness to pay for protection/enhancement of biodiversity

Land management e.g. users calculate the annual estimate of the value of crops, timber and other saleable produce at market prices

The organisations involved explain the Green Infrastructure Valuation Toolkit was created because if green infrastructure is well managed it can bring many benefits that can contribute to sustainable economic growth. However, calculating benefits is a very complex task so the toolkit was developed to help actors make a business case for how these benefits directly contribute to a local economy, or provide wider non-market returns for society and the environment.

The argument for investing in green infrastructure is that it can:

Support growthe.g. investing in green infrastructure can increase employment and tourism

Mitigate against the impacts of climate change e.g. reducing the impacts of flooding

Improve health e.g. green spaces make areas more healthy to live in

How is green infrastructure valued?

Standard valuation techniques are used to assess the potential benefits and functions provided by green infrastructure within a defined project area. However, not all benefits can be assigned a monetary value because a valuation technique does not exist or it is very difficult to prove a direct causal link between green infrastructure and the potential benefits.